Tag Archives: movies

Content is king. One of the biggest challenges for emerging display technology is content availability. Whether it’s 3D, 4K or wide color gamut, these new features simply aren’t worth much without access lots of great, optimized content.

As new 4K TV’s begin hitting store shelves this year, they are entering a content vacuum.

Standards bodies like the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are still working out the precise definition of marketing terms like Ultra High Definition TV (UHDTV). Proposed standards could include support for eight million pixel resolution, extremely wide color gamut and 3D content. But, today, there is almost no content out there that takes full advantage of all of the exciting capabilities of the new sets.

At least one set-maker is taking it upon themselves to solve this problem by delivering both the 4K content and hardware. Sony announced last week that it will loan a 4K Ultra HD video player loaded with UHD content to buyers of their new 84” UHD television. The selection of 4K content on this player is fairly limited for now, but as more titles are released, this approach could help drive adoption of high resolution and wide color gamut formats. I wouldn’t be surprised if other set makers started following suit, though Sony does have an inherent advantage, owning a movie studio.

If you ever doubted that video games are big business Activision’s recent sales record should be enough to convince you. On its way to reaching $1 billion in sales in just over two weeks with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision smashed every entertainment sales record.

Every entertainment sales record.

That means books, movies and video games. Over its lifetime the franchise has generated in the neighborhood of $6 billion in revenue, which puts it squarely into a Star Wars-level stratosphere as one of the most valuable entertainment properties ever.

What does this have to do with high gamut color display technology?

One of the potential hurdles to widespread adoption of high color gamut display technologies is a lack of content that’s optimized to take advantage of all those extra colors.

With Hollywood-sized blockbuster sales comes Hollywood-sized budgets to create rich new universes for gamers to explore. The expanded creative palette that high color gamut technology offers game developers is a perfect fit. What color is the blood of a martian supposed to be when it explodes and why limit it to a range of colors typically seen on earth?

Additionally, on the platform side, electronics manufacturers could take advantage of a push into high gamut displays to differentiate their entire hardware/software ecosystem. We already know that the current PlayStation™ hardware is capable of the xvColor high gamut standard. Pairing that with wide color games and a TV that can show it might prove a useful differentiator for any platform.

Videogames may just be the driving force that finally pushes high gamut displays into the mainstream.